that can possibly come into them; we consider the wealthy as our
salary, the poor as our perquisites. What is this, but a picture of
your member of parliament ripening into a minister, your patriot
mellowing into your placeman? And mark me, Mr. Nabbem! is not the
very language of both as similar as the deeds? What is the phrase
either of us loves to employ? 'To deliver.' What? 'The Public.'
And do not both invariably deliver it of the same thing,--namely,
its purse? Do we want an excuse for sharing the gold of our
neighbours, or abusing them if they resist? Is not our mutual, our
pithiest plea, 'Distress'? True, your patriot calls it 'distress of
the country;' but does he ever, a whit more than we do, mean any
distress but his own? When we are brought low, and our coats are
shabby, do we not both shake our heads and talk of 'reform'? And
when, oh! when we are up in the world, do we not both kick 'reform'
to the devil? How often your parliament man 'vacates his seat,'
only for the purpose of resuming it with a weightier purse! How
often, dear Ned, have our seats been vacated for the same end!
Sometimes, indeed, he really finishes his career by accepting the
Hundreds,--it is by 'accepting the hundreds' that ours may be
finished too! [Ned drew a long sigh.] Note us now, Mr. Nabbem, in
the zenith of our prosperity,--we have filled our pockets, we have
become great in the mouths of our party. Our pals admire us, and
our blowens adore. What do we in this short-lived summer? Save and
be thrifty? Ah, no! we must give our dinners, and make light of our
lush. We sport horses on the race-course, and look big at the
multitude we have bubbled. Is not this your minister come into
office? Does not this remind you of his equipage, his palace, his
plate? In both cases lightly won, lavishly wasted; and the public,
whose cash we have fingered, may at least have the pleasure of
gaping at the figure we make with it! This, then, is our harvest of